Monday, May 5, 2014

Sew for Victory!

I did it! I finished a project to enter into the Sew for Victory challenge! And I used my very first real old vintage pattern! Woot woot!

I bought this pattern from Etsy a few months ago, because I'd been *dying* to have a 40's style blouse with pintucks in the front.

I wasn't sure what fabric I'd use but I had a purple floral cotton that I figured would suffice, so that was what I assumed I was going to use. Then I saw this picture from the show Bomb Girls. Notice the girl in the middle....

Even though the style of my blouse is different, I decided I HAD to make it out of a peachy polka dot. Nothing else would suffice. I was scheduled to go to NYC with my family April 17-21st, so I knew I'd be able to look then. But that was cutting it close to the Sew for Victory deadline. In the end, I figured I'd rather wait and have a shirt that I LOVED as opposed to rushing and never wearing the thing.

And wouldn't you know, the first fabric store I went to in New York (Fulton Fabrics in Brooklyn, right across the street from our hotel) had the perfect fabric! It's a mystery fiber, probably polyester (I'm not a fiber snob at this point in my sewing career) but the drape is nice and it was only about $5 a yard! Yaaaayyyy!

So without further ado, here are some pictures of my Sew for Victory top.

Changes I made to the pattern: When I made the muslin the neckline was
severely choking me, and that would just not do, so I lowered the
neckline 2 inches. In hindsight, 1 inch probably would have done it,
since now it's *eeeevvveeerrr* so slightly too big, but I kind of like
it that way. I also made the bow wider than the pattern called for,
using a 3" bias strip (as opposed to 1"). The only other change I made
was adding 1" of length to the bottom and 3/4" of width to the side
seams near my hips. Other than that I thought it fit well as is. A bit
blousy but just the right amount of blousiness, in my opinion :)

It looks better tucked in, but here are some pictures of it un-tucked as an option.